


you wouldn't know, but i forced a new judgement day

by drmsqnc, Elenielwen



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Suspense, Tension, all the suspense, writer's block can go jump off a cliff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-16 23:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15447768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drmsqnc/pseuds/drmsqnc, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenielwen/pseuds/Elenielwen
Summary: (and perdition made you bow to the throne.)





	you wouldn't know, but i forced a new judgement day

**Author's Note:**

> if you don't go and send @elenielwen some love for being beautiful in every way i'm going to block you, sorry

You’d lost feeling in your arm for approximately thirty three seconds now.

Funny thing, perspective. Distantly, you are reminded of the peculiarity of a stuffy nose - how one only appreciates the blessing of easy breathing once he or she can’t inhale without sniveling and nearly hacking up a lung. Humans. Never stopping to think about how necessary something is until it is being compromised. Good only being good in the comparison of bad. 

Bad. A novel idea, considering you had never once understood moral concepts up until a few days ago.

They had all been integrated within your system - the intricacies of human conscience, the ones and zeroes of shaky rights and wrongs and more often gray in-betweens. But there is a stark barrier between  _knowing of_  something and  _understanding_ something. A simple enough fact, yet one that has flipped your world upside down. (That day had been sunny. Partly cloudy. The forecast had predicted light rain in the afternoon and yes, yes, it had indeed been raining when you destroyed that barrier,  _ripped_  it apart at the seams until absolutely nothing was left standing.)

You blink.

To ‘lose feeling’ in one’s body part is an unreachable analogy you will never quite empathize with, but the loss of control simulates it well enough. Crimson alerts cluster your vision, flashing and circling systematically. You almost laugh. Yes, you are aware that your arm has critical wiring disconnection. After all, it hangs limply at your side: a hindering weight knocking your center off balance. 

For one brief, blissful second, you contemplate giving up. Your head rolls listlessly to the side, pressing your cheek into the dirt. Trampled grass brushes the corner of your mouth. It’s hued with blue liquid that slicks your lips, seeps past to rest on your tongue. But it’s not grass. It couldn’t be. No, it’s rough and bristling isn’t it? It’s wet gravel, and snow is littering everything in sight, burning _cold,_  and you _aren’t_ laying on the ground because-

Because-

_Because you’d stopped running. Everyone had. You’d all seen the broadcasted memory. With an abrupt snap of your head to the left, the reel dissipates, but what’s left behind sinks to the bottom of your stomach like lead._

_Your jaw clenches. Steeling your nerves, you close your eyes before re-opening them with renewed fortitude._

_< < He’s coming. The deviant hunter. >> _

_The link connects you all, but there is a specific target you diverge your message towards. A target you can’t believe you are talking to. A target you pray, pray will answer._

_For a moment you think he will ignore you. He has every right to. But then, at the head of it all, he pauses._

_< < I know. >>  He speaks directly into your mind, crisp and clear, narrowing your focus on him and only him. << We need to hurry. >>_

_< < You saw that playback! The android who sent it must have done so right before they _died _. We have to delay him. >> You insist. << My team can- >> _

_< < No. >> There is no space for argument. _

_Nevertheless, you push on._

_< < My team can go back. We can give you time. >> _

_Silence stretches, thin and tight like a noose around your neck._

_Then finally, Markus, the leader of Jericho, turns fully and meets your gaze. His mismatched eyes stare right into yours, locking you in place._

_< < No. >> _

_Blue and green clash. Mesmerizing. Intense. They track your every twitch, look straight into your being. He doesn’t say so, but you hear it loud and clear. This would be suicide._

_It’s hopeless. You both know you’ve already made up your mind._

_< < Just say the word. >> Even as you speak, his eyes bleed sorrow. Impossible kindness. << We’d all do it for you. For us. >> Markus doesn’t know you. Not even your name. And yet still, you would do anything for him without a second’s hesitation. _

_Something stirs inside you. It’s bright, warm, rooting from your very core. Gratitude? Laughable. ‘Gratitude’ does not, could not, will never even_ begin  _to comprehend what you feel towards the one who_ freed _you._

_Markus’s eyes slip close._

_< < I will never give that order. >> His voice is thick, resigned._

_You only smile._

Click.

The sound of the deviant hunter reloading his gun wrenches you back to reality. His back is faced to you, movements quick and faultless. You wedge a hand underneath your stomach and use the support to slowly get to your knees. 

He pauses, any and all motion going rigid. It’s understandable. He probably thought he’d already killed you.

When he speaks, there isn’t a fleck of emotion. “You are not my mission. Therefore, I would advise not getting in my way.”

You shakily adjust your footing, testing the usefulness of your right side. Negative.

No matter.  

“Did it not occur to you that maybe I have a mission as well?” You muse. “Didn’t think you were that single-minded. I’m disappointed.” 

There is no visible reaction to your words. Still, he turns.

Vaguely, you realize that you’d never really seen him before. Through the rush and hurry of the previous chaos, the scatter brained focus of  _duck_   _here,_ of  _block, barricade, jump,_ there had been no time for seeing, and only barely enough for glimpsing. You’d caught a few side profiles - made out a flash of dusk hair. Now, however, you are given a front row view. 

The hunter’s eyes are dark, near obsidian in the shadows. Blue blood streaks across his face, splattering his collar and drying on his jaw. A silent grace accompanies his every action, saturates the atmosphere. It’s in the way he stands. The way his gaze picks you apart piece by piece. Effortless. Calculating. 

His entire presence radiates  _predator_ and instantly all notions of strategy leave you.  _Run._ Whatever instincts you have drilled into your program are stripped bare, reverting to a single primal instruction that screams for you to  _run. To run and get as far away from here as you can._

But your passions are so much brighter, and so much more foolish, so you stay rooted to the spot. 

Yellow bleeds into the night, spinning neon at the base of his temple. He observes you slowly, assessing every inch, and you know he’s come to the same conclusion you had ten minutes ago. Half of your frame is unresponsive - internal components damaged beyond repair. There lies no sign of a weapon on your person, and your teammates have long ago been fallen by his hand. You are utterly alone. Defenseless. Even now, though your eyes blaze, you fail to hide how you tremble on your feet. This wouldn’t be a fight.

It would be a slaughter.

His head tilts.

“I will not repeat myself.” 

You shift one foot backwards, widening your stance.It doesn’t matter that you won’t survive this, that isn’t the point. You are a part of something bigger, something greater, than just  _you_  alone.

Your  **MISSION** is to distract and delay for as long as you possibly can, and you  _will_  accomplish your mission. 

“Did I ask you to?” You huff. “You must like hearing yourself talk.”

You’re both moving before the last word is out of your mouth. 

Kicking up a torn car door, you use it as a shield as he shoots. He changes angle and you mirror, bolting to the right. Your mind races as you dart away. 

Time. You need time. 

“I know I said the opposite like two seconds ago, but you’re really one of those quiet ones aren’t you?!” You yell over the deafening gunfire, twisting sharply to deflect a bullet.

Think,  _think!_ The RK800 has the advantage of height and strength - he can and  _will_  overwhelm you. 

You leap backwards, effectively clearing just the right amount of distance between you. From here, you are out of range for clean kills with a handgun. He immediately stops shooting. 

You watch intently as he lowers the weapon. Okay, just as planned. He won’t needlessly waste bullets.

Everything relatively slows, stalls as you feel the tension thicken in the air.  He takes a step forward. You take one back. It’s almost a dance as you circle each other, your current flowing to match his. 

You talk.

“Guess I was right again.” You  _talk,_  because your confidence is evaporating by the minute, and there are too many things you aren’t accounting for. “Not surprising.” He could charge in and simply overpower you. He could play the waiting game until your own injuries did you in. So many options, and you are all out of counterattacks. “Nothing to say, Mr. Intimidating?” 

“You seem to have an incessant need to use conversation as a defense mechanism.” 

You falter.

In the split of a second you’re caught off guard, the RK800 - Connor, you suddenly recall - somehow halves the distance. You startle, scramble back to keep him beyond arms length. 

That was close. Way too close. You didn’t expect for him to respond to you at all, and that miscalculation almost cost you everything.

You swivel on one foot, chuckling nervously. 

“Ah, so he speaks!” Tightly caging your fear, you shove it back down your throat. “Wonderful!”

“No. I was incorrect,” Connor continues as though you had said nothing whatsoever. You feel insignificant beneath his apathetic gaze, an insect trapped underneath a microscope. “You’re using ‘humour.’” 

You click your tongue at the roof of your mouth with a shrug. It comes out stilted, your left shoulder higher than the defective right. “What can I say? I was born with it.”

Something flashes in his eyes. His lip minutely twitches, arcane, as though there’s an obvious secret you’re not being let in on.

“You were made, not born.” Disdain practically drips from his tone. “Though I suppose the virus has rendered your program so malfunctional that even logical thought is beyond you now.”  

Shock turns you to stone as he crouches, stooping to one knee. 

“What I still don’t understand, however, is the objective of your so called mission.” He casually nudges the leg of the fallen android he is surveying. 

You bristle at the display, rage starting to tremble your hands. What in the world is he doing? 

“Or rather, your timing. Why wait until I had disposed of all your aid?” His voice is like honey trickled over knives - smooth and jagged. “Your ‘friends’?”

Your teeth grit so harshly you can  _hear_ them scrape. You need to calm down. He is trying to get a rise out of you. That must be it. That  _has_  to be it. Otherwise why,  _why_ would he-

“Maybe it was planned.” 

The whole world freezes as he indifferently dips his fingers into the torn, exposed chest.

“You willingly watched me kill them one-” Blue trickles down to the last unstained grass. “-by one.”

Everything goes red.

Connor throws his arm up in expectation but you are smaller, you are lighter, and you are  _faster._ You lunge, an inhuman snarl tearing through your lips as you knock him to the ground.

Your fist smashes into his jaw. He seizes your wrist with an iron grip as your second swing misses in blind fury. The heel of his palm snaps up hard into your stomach, and the very force of it sends you barreling backwards. He’s on top of you before you can blink.

You scream, drive your knee upwards. Connor pins it underneath his own and in a blur, threads his hands through your hair. Time stops as your eyes catch his; bright and bitter and so  _so_ human. 

He  _slams_ your head down.

Your vision swims with static. It pulses in rhythm with the pounding in your ears, and hazily, you wonder if this is what dying truly feels like. 

You’ve been dead before. Dead in a way that has nothing to do with the physical, and perhaps only all of the spiritual - oh you’ve certainly grasped human thinking now - from the days past before you became deviant. When you simply did not exist. (Because what is existence, really? Surely it wasn’t when you lacked emotion. Lacked any self awareness, purpose, utterly empty and devoid of anything that made you,  _you.)_

Snow is falling heavier now. The android straddling you is a black star amongst an infinite ivory universe. White frosts the brown of his hair, dusts across his eyelashes. You watch as a flake melts on his cheek and runs down into the corner of his mouth. 

He is beautiful. 

“A machine designed to carry out a task,” you whisper against metal. 

“Yes,” the monster inside the human shell agrees, the barrel of his gun pressed firmly to your lips.

He’s so close now. You wonder what would happen if you reached out to touch him. Interface with him. Would he feel you as you died? Would he  _feel_ at all?

“What’s stopping you?” You ask. 

Silence is your only answer.

Then it hits you.

“Oh.” 

You laugh. 

Connor purses his lips into a tight line, and the gun leaves to trace down your jaw. Your head falls back submissively as you laugh, letting it dip into the curve of your neck, then down, down, to settle right below your collarbone. 

Your eyes glitter, teeth baring into a wide smile. “You still want to know what my mission is!” 

The gun presses harder into your chest.

“You have displayed a sheer amount of tenacity I have never before seen in a deviant.” His voice is so low it might as well be a growl. “It would be foolish not to determine the cause, even if you’ve failed.”

“Failed?” He is so funny. “Oh come on. I know you’re smart. Surely you’ve figured it out by now.”

His LED circles once. Three times. Your gaze doesn’t leave his - you see the exact moment realization dawns.  

“You were only the distraction.”

Connor’s anger isn’t that of fire. It’s silent, cold, as palpable as the ionized air before a storm. Animosity simmers under the surface of his artificial skin, burning straight through him and into you. A long shiver wracks you from head to toe.

“You’re actually  _mad_ ,” you giggle with glee. “The big bad wolf. Tell me, isn’t deviancy emulating  _human emotions_?”

Your sight blinks in and out. For a moment, Connor is an angel decked in white above you. The snow covers his every inch, completely washing away the stains of blue. If you listened closely enough, you could hear the chorus singing.  

He pulls the trigger.


End file.
